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Dissertation Information for James Henry Tuten

NAME:
- James Henry Tuten

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- Emory University (USA) (2003)

ADVISORS:
- James L Roark

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Leroy Davis Jr
- Dan T. Carter

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: Time and tide: Cultural changes and continuities among the rice plantations of the Lowcountry, 1860--1930

Abstract: Little serious attention has been given to Lowcountry rice culture from the Civil War through the industry's failure in 1929. This study attempts to redress this hole in the historiography. The historiography of the South Carolina Lowcountry is quite rich especially for the colonial and antebellum periods. The trove of sources on rice culture from its beginnings in the late seventeenth century to the Civil War the Palmetto State's leading role in the sectional crisis and the relative length and depth of materials on slavery have all encouraged scholars to look to South Carolina for answers to historical questions.

In probing the social, economic and cultural factors at work among planters and laborers, this study provides a much fuller picture of why people from different classes and races continued to cultivate rice after emancipation. After a brief historical synopsis of rice culture up to 1860, subsequent chapters examine the years 1860-1930. Several thematic chapters highlight changes in agricultural practices and the role of rice as a symbol and a foodway in the Lowcountry. The final chapter addresses the long-lived plantation mystique and carries the history of the mystique to the year 2000.

"Time and Tide" makes several key arguments about rice culture after 1860. First, freedmen and planters reconstructed rice culture in a free labor environment in which labor organization, compensation and changing social mores were hotly contested. Postbellum rice culture was reasonably successful until the 1890s thanks to the adoption of some progressive agricultural practices and the tenacity of labor and planters. Rice culture's collapse was more complicated than previously thought and it resulted from a gradual decline from a combination of macro-economic factors, hurricanes, floods, and other environmental causes. The postbellum planters and laborers that fought against these difficulties did so for many reasons. These included identity, the plantation mystique and the important place of rice in Lowcountry culture.

MPACT Scores for James Henry Tuten

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-01-31 06:33:51

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Students under James Henry Tuten

ADVISEES:
- None

COMMITTEESHIPS:
- None